Registration/Season Length:
Our Season starts/registration opens the end of August/beginning of September. We do ask, unless you are a returning family, that you come see at least once practice before registering to make sure the program is a good fit for your athlete, at which point we will discuss registration/cost further.
The season runs through late May/early June, normally ending with the SHI tournament the last week of April at a different host city each year, which chosen by SHI from the active teams cities in their roster.
Team Manager/Registration Contacts:
Phone: 419.310.2467
Phone: 614.488.0569
History:
Grandravine, Ontario, 1970…Pat Flick notices a boy, who is developmentally disabled, coming to the rink to watch his brother play and finds inspiration…with two players and some ice from the Grandravine Athletic Association, special hockey was born!!!
Special hockey took a while to be discovered by us here in the U.S, but it finally found its way in 1994, when Tony Sansone founded the first team in St. Louis, Mo. Since that time, special hockey has grown rapidly around the globe and here in our own back yard.
Shortly after founding the team in St. Louis, in 1996, Tony Sansone and Pat Flick were chosen to lead SHI (Special Hockey International) as the governing body, supporting international competition for special athletes and things took off from there.
Just a couple short years after that, in 2000, special hockey had expanded so rapidly here in the United States that Mike Hickey founded ASHA to help support the growing interest and by 2007, Mike and Kelly Good partnered with ASHA and the CCYHA to found the team that is currently in place today.
From humble beginnings in Grandravine, through the hard work of many people, the partnerships between SHI, ASHA, CCYHA, and commonly minded people continue to provide many opportunities for athletes with developmental disabilities to play ice hockey in an environment adapted to each athlete's level of physical and mental ability. Along with your CCYHA Blue Jackets, there are currently 50+ teams world-wide being governed by SHI and 20+ of those teams are here in the US, being coordinated by ASHA.
Links:
(The National Governing Body for ice hockey in the United States)
ASHA: http://www.americanspecialhockey.org/
(American Governing Body for Special Needs Hockey)
SHI: http://www.specialhockeyinternational.org/
(International Governing Body for Special Needs Hockey):